New Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus), also known as wild snowball and red-root, is a lovely, low-growing perennial shrub in the buckthorn family with a long history of use as a medicinal and herbal tea plant by Native Americans and white settlers. It’s also one of our most valuable wildlife plants, serving as a nectar source and larva host for a variety of butterflies and moths, and as a food source for white-tailed deer and game birds, such as bobwhite quail and wild turkey. The clustered white flowers also attract hummingbirds. Along with the milkweeds, this is one of the most valuable plants to grow in a native plant garden. The plant’s deep-green, lanceolate leaves with lightly scalloped edges are quite beautiful, as are the unique, five-petaled white flowers, which form in terminal clusters and open from the bottom up. The photos above were taken along the Deckers Creek Trail.